When one is pushed too far…
by Dymian
Summary: What would have happened if Vernon had kept his head after the event with the fireplace letters? Oneshot. Char!Death.


When one is pushed too far…

I Do Not own Harry Potter. That is the property of J.K Rowling. This is a Oneshot. *Everything in _italics_ is and excerpt straight from J.K. Rowling's work, I do not own.

(Apparently I wasn't clear enough about this before, and so the story got taken down. I hope this fixes that problem)

* * *

 _BOOM. They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake._

 _"Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly._

 _There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands – now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them._

 _"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you — I'm armed!"_

 _There was a pause. Then —_

 _SMASH!_

 _The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor._

 _A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair._

 _The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all._

 _"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey…"_

 _He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear._

 _"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger._

 _Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon._

 _"An' here's Harry!" said the giant._

 _Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile._

 _"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's eyes."_

 _Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise._

 _"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"_

 _"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room._

 _Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on._

 _"Anyway — Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here — I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."_

 _From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing._

 _Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?"_

 _The giant chuckled._

 _"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."_

 _He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm._

 _"What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."_

 _His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath._

 _The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."_

 _The giant chuckled darkly._

 _"Yer great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."_

 _He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."_

 _The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand._

 _"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts — yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course._

 _"Er — no," said Harry._

 _Hagrid looked shocked._

 _"Sorry," Harry said quickly._

 _"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"_

 _"All what?" asked Harry._

 _"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!"_

 _He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall._

 _"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy — this boy! — knows nothin' abou' — about ANYTHING?"_

 _Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad._

 _"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."_

 _But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."_

 _"What world?"_

 _Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode._

 _"DURSLEY!" he boomed._

 _Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Harry._

 _"But yeh must know about yer mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."_

 _"What? My — my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?"_

 _"Yeh don' know… yeh don' know…" Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare._

 _"Yeh don' know what yeh are?" he said finally._

 _Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice._

 _"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"_

 _A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage._

 _"You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"_

 _"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly._

 _"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic._

 _Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror._

 _"Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry — yer a wizard."_

 _There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard._

 _"I'm a what?" gasped Harry._

 _"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good 'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."_

 _Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to_

 _Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. He pulled out the letter and read:_

 _HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_

 _Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE_

 _(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

 _Dear Mr. Potter,_

 _We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment._

 _Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _Minerva McGonagall,_

 _Deputy Headmistress_

 _Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"_

 _"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl — a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl — a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down:_

 _Dear Professor Dumbledore,_

 _Given Harry his letter._

 _Taking him to buy his things tomorrow._

 _Weather's horrible. Hope you're well._

 _Hagrid_

 _Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone._

 _Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly._

 _"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight._

 _"He's not going," he said._

 _Hagrid grunted._

 _"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said. *_

Moving with a grace the belied his large form, Vernon took four steps forward and grabbed Harry by the hair. Harry only had time for his eyes to begin to widen before the other hand came down on his shoulder and clamped down tightly.

With a loud grunt and sickening tearing sound, Vernon snapped Harry's neck, causing the light behind the once bright eyes to wink out.

All movement screeched to a halt as the young wizard's body hit the floor with an oddly loud thump.

"There." Vernon growled at Hagrid, reaching behind his back with a hand. "I stopped him from going to your freak school."

Eyes widening, Hagrid roared with rage and lunged for the murderer of James's and Lilly's child.

Right into a 9mm bullet into his right eye.

Dudley looked at his father, his eyes wide.

Looking down at his boy, Vernon smiled. "Just goes to show Dudders, in business and in life, always have a backup plan." He then lifted the hand with his hold-out pistol.

Breathing deeply, he struggles to get his heartbeat back into tolerable levels.

"Right, we will leave these two here. The story is we felt we were being threatened by a stalker, so we left, only for him to catch us here. We let our guard down because we thought the storm would grant us a temporary reprieve. He burst in and attempted to attack us. He threw us around, managed to destroy the first gun, he must have been on drugs for that kind of strength, and managed to kill the boy before I was able to get a bead on him with the hold-out."

Dudley and Petunia nodded, the former with a growing look of hero-worship on his face.

Without a backward glance, and only stopping long enough to grab the now destroyed rifle, the family left, fewer in number and lighter in sprit.

A few minutes later, the scar on the younger corpses' forehead split open, a foul ichor pouring forth as a shadow escaped, screaming, before it dispersed into the air, leaving the shack, once again, silent as the grave.


End file.
